Your Right to Know

The head of a company expanding Cheryl’s Cookies in Westerville rather than in another state
praised Gov. John Kasich yesterday for ardently making the case for the city Kasich has long called
home.

“He’d call at all hours of the day and night,” said Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-Flowers, the local
plant’s parent company. “I thought, my God, these people really do want jobs here.”

The New Yorker also credited John Minor, president and CIO of Kasich’s privatized economic
development agency, JobsOhio, with being “the best salesman I ever met in my life.”

The $4.8 million addition to the building will provide space for 92 new jobs and $2.9 million in
new payroll within three years, the state says. JobsOhio recommended a 45 percent, six-year Ohio
Job Creation Tax Credit, which was approved by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority in
October. Westerville gave the company a 100 percent real-estate tax abatement, with a 35
percent payment in lieu of taxes for 12 years for the expansion.

Kasich said McCann could have added to facilities he has in any number of states instead of
expanding in Westerville. Ohio competed mainly with Illinois, where the parent company owns two
food-production subsidiaries, both with room to expand.

Meanwhile, House Democrats commemorated the three-year anniversary of JobsOhio with a letter to
House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, asking for hearings on a bill crafted last May that
would allow more public scrutiny of the privatized development agency.

The letter, signed by Columbus Rep. John Patrick Carney, also a state auditor candidate, as well
as Austintown Rep. Ronald Gerberry, said: “We should demand more accountability and transparency
for taxpayers when a state-created entity is failing to do its job, or at least allow the
legislature to debate the merits of requiring more from an organization that has given taxpayers
little to nothing.”

During the groundbreaking, Kasich and other dignitaries were given shiny new shovels to attack a
mound of dirt and mud dumped early yesterday on the cookie-maker’s paved parking lot.

Before they could dig in for the photo op, Kasich remarked, “I got a question — what is it we’re
shoveling here?”